Fort Tilden Showings

If you enjoyed MBHumor episode 66 with Fort Tilden, but haven't had a chance to actually see the movie yet, here are some upcoming dates for New Yorkers: 

LES Film Festival

Sat, June 14 - 9pm

Village East Cinema

BUY TICKETS

Northside Film Festival

Tue, June 17 - 9:45pm

Nitehawk Cinema

BUY TICKETS

BSL (Body as a Second Language)

Recently Business week published an article entitled "BODY-LANGUAGE EXPERT: I Would Not Trust Anything Snowden Said To NBC"

This seems like the right time to say it: as an expert on the writing of Body Language experts, I would not trust anything this Body Language expert said to Business Insider.

His linguistic stance is totally slumped, which results in his prose "embracing" whatever assumptions he made going into his analysis. Also, because his assumptions are totally open to the reader the overall effect is to engage the audience with pseudoscientific analysis while providing no actual news. 

It's tricky, and you wouldn't notice it if you didn't know to look like I've trained to, but it's safe to say: this article is clickbait, and this body language expert is full of shit.

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Superbad Words aka Incensored

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Recently Jonah Hill said a bad word. A paparazzi was chasing him down, and made some comments on his outfit, and Jonah said "Suck my dick, faggot." Some people have said that's because of the clothing remark, some have speculated it's because Jonah's homophobic, others out there are surely taking this opportunity to say he's one'a them secret hollywood gays.  

"I've made a huge Mistake."

Frankly I don't claim to know what was in Jonah Hill's heart when he called a paparazzi the word Faggot. I also don't care. The lesson from today's media event isn't about Jonah Hill, it's about words and people. Specifically, it's not a great idea to use a word pegged to a historically marginalized group as shorthand for "bad," regardless of how you actually may or may not feel about gays, it's going to remind a lot of people of all the gay-bashing they experienced growing up, and that's not a great thing. Of course paparazzi being assholes (or cunts or dicks or whichever you prefer), is still very much the case, but that doesn't absolve Mr. Hill, regardless of his true intentions.

But  Mike, people don't understand! Jonah doesn't really think that about gay people, he was just using the word faggot to mean 'bad.'"

I think most people do get what he meant, they just disagree that the speaker is the only one who has a say in deciding whether a word is hurtful. My guess is that Jonah Hill's use of that word wasn't based on homophobia (except for the most general, internalized variety), but more likely based on a deep-seated recognition that that's a word he could use to hurt someone's feelings when he needed one. If you want to dismiss a woman, call her crazy. If you want to dismiss a guy, call him a woman, or gay. Them's the rules. 

Test it out: If you believe that only the speaker's intentions matter, walk up to your boss tomorrow, say "Hey Bob, I fucked your wife." Then try to explain to him that 'fucked your wife' is your new slang for "got the TPS reports done on time, and it's his fault for not understanding what you meant. 

But Mike, it's just a word! 

Every word is just a word. With a history of use and a meaning based on that history. You didn't make these words up yourself, you learned them in certain contexts, not only is your use of the word informed by more factors than you may be aware of, and even if you are aware, you as the speaker are only half of the communicative act. The other half is the receiver, or the listener. The word "Gyp" was based on an insult for gypsies. Maybe it's been made common enough that it isn't now, but I still might not throw it around if I were hanging out with a bunch of Romani. I don't know what it might mean to them, and my intentions are only half the equation. 

But Mike, censorship!

Oh shut up. How is he being censored? If anything, we are now giving his words an even larger microphone than ever. No one said he "can't" say faggot. They only said he shouldn't say faggot. And telling someone that they can't tell someone what they shouldn't say would be censorship. But it's not, because you don't have any authority to stop anyone from saying anything, ya dummy. The logic in this argument is worse than inception. 

But Mike, Louie CK said it was ok!!

Louis CK is hilarious. And part of what makes him so great is how thoughtful he is in listening to his critics and responding to them, usually with a clever way of saying "Yeah, maybe I was a jerk." His initial take on the word Faggot in his amazing special Chewed up is hilarious, but what's truly satisfying is his response to his own words in his show Louie:

Louie On the word Faggot in his special "Chewed Up."

Louie responding to his bit in a scene from his show.

"But Mike, that's not actually the true history of the word faggot!" 

Man on the beach dancing with 1/12th of a faggot. 

Right you are word historian! (in this case the word historian was the very thoughtful and hilarious Raj Sivaraman, a comic originally from the Boston area). The story in the episode is a mix of truth and fiction -- in truth the word was used for the bundles of sticks to burn heretics, the 'phrase fire and faggot' was used to indicate "punishment of a heretics." Shockingly (or perhaps flamingly) that's not why it came to be used to refer to gays. (for more: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=faggot).

 But I don't think the historical veracity of that is the real point of the monologue. The point is when he says this:

"You might want to know that every gay man in America has probably had that word shouted at them while they’re being beaten up. Sometimes many times. Sometimes by a lot of people, all at once. So when you say [faggot], it kind of brings that all back up.”

It's about understanding that the people who hear a word are affected not just by how you meant it, but by their experience with it over the course of their own lives and a cultural/historical context, and if you want to use it ok, but to deny that the listener's experience matters in the act of communication is just kind of a dick thing to do, and given how much Comedians have to understand the psychology and expectations of a listener to craft a joke, you'd think it would be something they'd more aware or accepting of.

I think it's great that Jonah Hill apologized for using the word like that not because I think he was one way and this experience has taught him anything about life, but because I think public displays of "we don't use groups of people as a shorthand for "bad" or "evil" is a good thing for us, as a culture, to reinforce in the public sphere. I don't care for the false shaming aspects of it -- people in the media wagging their fingers as though they're somehow better than that, but really that's just me saying that I hate the media's tendency to report nothing as news. And I still do feel that way. But fuck it, if the media is going to be mostly about wildly screaming a fluffy fucking nothing, I'd still rather be on the right side of the fluff.

But Mike, when can I say faggot? It's like my favorite word! 

Obviously there are a lot of things you can do with proper framing, but as a general guide I think it's worth noting that the language you use in conversation when you know how your listener is likely to interpret to you is totally different from the language you use in public, when your words go out into the world and anyone can hear them and be affected by them. Not that my opinion is necessarily the one that matters, but I think there's a strong argument to be made that using the word faggot in conversation with a friend who knows what's "in your heart" when you say it is fine. 

And look, sometimes we get angry and say things we don't mean, even in public. And sometimes we have to say sorry for that. That's ok. But to anyone complaining about censorship or freedom of speech: grow the fuck up and go like... one level deeper.

With Out Rage: 5 reasons why ‪#‎CancelColbert‬ is bad for Humanity

Stephen Colbert is under attack by a young woman named Suey Parks and a small army of twitter followers References are below for those of you who need to catch up, but in the mean time, here are five reasons why this ‪#‎CancelColbert‬ thing is bad for Humanity.

1. It distracts the conversation from discussing *actual* racist remarks, names and institutions (ahem, redskins, ahem).

2. It distracts the conversation from *actual* prejudiced comedy, of which there is paaaaa-lenty. Including lots of cases where "ironic racism" is used as a defense to excuse actual racism (this just ain't one of those times).

3. By crying wolf about satire that aims at exposing prejudice, in comedy or in society, it makes it easier to disregard cries of prejudice that are totally on point.

4. Colbert has enough renown that he will weather this easily. But if he weren't so famous and something like this happened, he would be tried in the media and likely found guilty. This kind of thing sends the message to thoughtful comedians that if they dare touch on sensitive subjects they will be crucified by people who claim to be liberal, but are actually profoundly conservative.

5. An argument could be made against Colbert's use of his character. I've heard the argument made before. By intelligent, rational friends. And we talked about it. But when people use alarmist attacks like this one to cut through the noise and get attention, they're sacrificing a meaningful teaching opportunity for the chance to be written about in the news. And that's just gross.

Maybe Suey Park is young enough or unsophisticated enough that she just doesn't get comedy, or maybe she does and is just shrewdly using this as an excuse to get her name out there by attacking a high profile celebrity. I don't know her, and I don't really care. It upsets me, as someone who cares about injustice, ignorance, and prejudice. It upsets me that there are a bunch of people who are going to use this woman's terribly chosen campaign as a cudgel to silence others (or even her in a better moment) when they bring real complaints to the public sphere.

So ‪#‎freecolbert‬ or whatever. But let's please talk to each other like adults, preferably in more than 140 character chunks.

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If you haven't seen what this whole thing is based on, the relevant joke in context is from 8:26 to end of segment here:http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/full-episodes/3w6ufc/march-26--2014---errol-morris

The following hoopla is summarized here:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/03/28/anti-colbert-activist-huffpost-live-host-grapple-over-racism-satire/

Diversity for Whites!

Here's my slightly aggressive response to an article written by a guy I like and respect who I vehemently disagree with on this subject. I figure the anger expressed and expletives I use are balanced out by the fact that I'm giving his article free press. 

For reference, his article is here. In case you don't want to read that to read this, my summary of it is as follows "Grr! Why so many shows  just for girls and minorities? They don't need to be coddled, they should compete on an even playing field with all us white guys."  His version is probably less passive-aggressively whiney. Probably. 

Why We Should Make Comedy Shows About Being Funny, Not About Being Diverse

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As an ostensibly white guy (my dad was a Jew from Argentina, but look at me), I get really exhausted by the never-ending attempts by the privileged group to completely ignore history and pretend that the playing field is equal, whether in stand-up or anywhere else. I mean Joe, I like you, but seriously, what the fuck? Are you going to ask why there isn't also a white history month too? I mean I know tons of talented historically worthwhile blacks, why do they need to be coddled by having their own special month?

The reason why minorities and women deserve to have spaces carved out specifically for them is because there has been institutionalized discrimination against them for most of recorded history (and ya know, probably also in non-recorded history too). This isn't special treatment in a vacuum, it's special treatment as a corrective measure in a context in which white guys have been getting special treatment for ever. If you think that things are equal and fair as is, then I guess you must just think white guys are the funniest. Given how much they're over represented, it just must be some genetic, biological function, being a white guy is the funniest thing in the world, since surely there's no institutional circumstances that have led to the wild relative number of white guys. Other things that white guys must just naturally be AMAZING at include: Being president, being the star of movies, being news anchors, being CEOs.... Man, I guess white guys are THE BEST.

Getting different views in comedy is vital for it to continue to grow as an art form, and as Raj points out, there are economic reasons why this is a good move too. If stand-up continues to look like a white boys club, then we should be surprised that white boys are far more drawn towards it and promoted with in it, as the people doing the promoting tend to be former white boys themselves. Maybe in a hundred years (or however long it takes) when there are people of different backgrounds who have risen through the ranks and the institutional prejudice has been corrected for, maybe then your point stands, but considering that we still have people saying "I've already got one lady on the show, I think we're set," I don't think we're quite there yet.

I have never had an unpleasant time seeing you Joe, so I mean this with all respect, but come the fuck on, you have got to be smarter than this.